Brother devastated that sisters who died by suicide in Switzerland were able to take ‘the easy way out’
A New Yorker who was blindsided by the suicides of his two sisters in an $11,000 assisted-dying clinic says he is angered that Swiss law allowed them to take “the easy way out”.
Palliative care doctor Lila Ammouri, 54 and nurse Susan Frazier, 49, became “tired of life” after suffering from chronic insomnia, vertigo and back pain and chose to end their lives at the Pegasos Association in Basel on 11 February.
Cal Ammouri, 60, told The Independent his sisters were cremated and asked for their ashes to be “scattered over the countryside” in Switzerland, depriving him of the chance to hold a service.
Mr Ammouri said he was struggling to gather more information from authorities in the United States and Switzerland, and that the State Department had become “defensive”.
“They say ‘well it’s legal in that country’. They know it’s not legal here, they know that both political parties frown on it in America.
“There are other ways to deal with your problems than this. We know that in America. In Switzerland anything goes, maybe they like the easy way out.
“There you can walk into a bank with millions of dollars in your briefcase, they don’t think anything of it, they don’t raise any eyebrows. Here the FBI will want a little chat with you about money laundering. I don’t think I’d like to live in a country like that.”
Mr Ammouri said he would never recover from the grief of losing his sole remaining relatives.
“With the passage of time, the pain will not go away. Not something like this, it’s too much. Just too devastating for anyone to take.
“I still can’t accept it, it’s a tragedy, it should never have happened.
“I’m hanging in there. It’s difficult, we have to survive, we have to continue, we have to keep going, whether we like it or not. But this is not something I can accept.”
Dr Ammouri and Ms Frazier contacted assisted dying advocacy group Exit International in September 2020 for help on how to end their lives, director Philip Nitschke told The Independent on Sunday.
“They had both decided they were tired of life and it was time to go.
“What was very clear was that dying together was non-negotiable, it was very important to them.”
The sisters also revealed to Dr Nitshcke they had endured a “troubled” period in their lives.
“They didn’t give us much detail, but they said they had helped each other through what had been a difficult time and saw themselves as being each other’s best friend.”
They became members of Exit International in October 2020, which provided them with DIY handbooks on how to take their lives.
The sisters were worried that the procedure may not succeed, and he placed them in touch with Pegasos, which is one the few clinics that does not require proof of terminal illness.
They became members of Pegasos in March 2021, and had originally intended to travel to Switzerland soon afterwards, but faced delays as Covid-19 cases surged in Europe and the US.
